Dan Aykroyd gives his latest insane update on Ghostbusters 3. Benedict Cumberbatch reveals why his Star Trek Into Darkness character is more than just a villain. Find out just who's going to be in charge of Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show. Andy Serkis discusses Caesar's future in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Plus Arrow hints galore!

Nothing but spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Star Trek Into Darkness

We still don't know exactly who Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch is playing in this — even after last night's new teaser trailer — but here's what he and director J.J. Abrams had to say about the character at a recent press conference in Tokyo. We're dealing with doubly-translated quotes, so these may not be entirely accurate, but hopefully the gist is there:

Cumberbatch: He is very ruthless…He is not a clearly good or evil character. He is a villain but the actions he takes has intent and reason... He is a complicated character not to be judged by white-or-black, or good-or-evil. But this is the appeal of J.J.'s works and I felt challenge as an actor.Abrams: The character is a villain and scary, but I was looking for an actor with humanity who audiences can sympathies with. When I saw Benedict in Sherlock, I wanted to convince him whatever it took. I expected a lot from him, but Benedict responded by acting beyond my expectations.

And here are some thoughts from Chris Pine on what's ahead for Captain Kirk:

I am proud that the movie is scaled up from the previous one. At the same time, the characters filled with humanity. This is sci-fi, but you'll enjoy down-to-earth drama…Kirk was selfish before, but he matures humanly. Confronting with anger and conflict, he became a leader with mind of self-sacrifice... In the previous movie, Kirk was a selfish young man. This time, as a leader, he grows up to be a man leading everyone despite getting out of his mind. I my acting is influenced by growing as an adult in the last four years.

Iron Man 3

Director Shane Black discusses the particular challenge of creating a fairly grounded Iron Man film immediately following The Avengers:

"We had kind of a conundrum in that The Avengers opens up this huge skyhole full of inter-dimensional aliens, and you kind of look back and [think], 'Well, what do you do after that?' Except go back to a sort of more gritty, intense kind of techno-thriller root. I owe sort of a debt to [Jon] Favreau I have to carry on what he started without violating it - at the same time bringing sort of my own enhancement if I can."

You can check out the full video interview with Black and War Machine actor Don Cheadle over at Wired. [IGN]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

With the early reviews decidedly mixed on how well the movie's 48 frames-per-second presentation works, here's director Peter Jackson with a spirited rebuttal:

"I'm fascinated by reactions. I'm tending to see that anyone under the age of 20 or so doesn't really care and thinks it looks cool, not that they understand it but they often just say that 3D looks really cool. I think 3D at 24 frames is interesting, but it's the 48 that actually allows 3D to almost achieve the potential that it can achieve because it's less eye strain and you have a sharper picture which creates more of the 3-dimensional world... Warner Bros. were very supportive. They just wanted us to prove that the 24 frame version would look normal, which it does, but once they were happy with that, on first day, when we had to press that button that said '48 frames' even though on that first day we started shooting at 48 FPS, you could probably say there wasn't a single cinema in the world that would project the movie in that format. It was a big leap of faith.

"The big thing to realize is that it's not an attempt to change the film industry. It's another choice. The projectors that can run at 48 frames can run at 24 frames - it doesn't have to be one thing or another. You can shoot a movie at 24 frames and have sequences at 48 or 60 frames within the body of the film. You can still do all the shutter-angle and strobing effects. It doesn't necessarily change how films are going to be made. It's just another choice that filmmakers have got and for me, it gives that sense of reality that I love in cinema."

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Caesar actor Andy Serkis discusses what's next for the chimp revolutionary in Matt Reeves's followup to Rise of the Planet of the Apes:

"The interesting thing now will be how Caesar operates in this world—because of the virus that hits at the end of the first movie — and how Caesar brings an accord between the apes and the surviving humans and that's going to be interesting where we take that."

Ghostbusters 3

Dan Aykroyd gives his latest update on where things currently stand. As ever, everything is looking good, except for the part where it's actually happening — and yeah, that last bit is true in a couple of senses:

I'm as deeply inside Ghostbusters 3 as anyone involved in the project - that includes the executives at Sony, who have to go to sleep at night and have to decide to do it. Ivan Reitman, the director, who travels from Santa Barbara to L.A., and has for the last three years, working with writers to put it together. [The Office writers] Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, who worked on one of the drafts.

But that draft isn't being used anymore, right?
I've worked on every draft in the last three years, as Ivan has, and now we have a story and a draft that everybody seems to agree would make the third movie. At this point, I think we're closer than we ever have been. And because of the ever-shifting sands and nature of the motion-picture business, I will just say that hopefully, at some point, it will be morphing into what is known in the business as a [Aykroyd mimes air quotes] "production number XP39789." Then I will begin to rent cars, get hotel rooms, and bill for writing. But that point hasn't come. All my work has been gratis to this point, as Ivan's has, and I'm hoping that I can get that production number set up in L.A. and help everyone bring the movie to fruition, as the originator and creator of the concept. If it does not happen, the life of Dan Aykroyd and his family and friends will be quite full without Ghostbusters 3.

Aykroyd was also asked about the originally mooted Ghostbusters in Hell concept for Ghostbusters II, but he says that making that movie won't be possible until at least Ghostbusters 5. No, seriously, we're talking a complete new trilogy now:

Listen, I tell ya, after this movie gets made, and maybe the next one: Man-hell-ttan.

Man-hell-ttan.
Man-hell-ttan, and the Ghostbusters in hell, would be so solid, but we gotta get maybe one or two made before that. But, oh, wow... I wrote that with Tom Davis, my writing partner, recently deceased, who wrote Coneheads with me and stuff on Saturday Night Live. There's classic Tom Davis lines and funny stuff in there, really it's probably the most humorous of all the Ghostbusters scripts that have generated in that last little while. But we'll put the humor into this next one. It's gotta be funny, or it's not worth doing. It can be scary, it can be Ghostbusters, it can be the new franchise, the new people, but if it's not funny … Wait a minute, it started as a comedy. Let's make sure there's laughs and no laugh unturned and that we really make that our priority, to make it funny and exciting, but mainly funny.

There's a lot more at the link, including his take on how if Bill Murray had just agreed to do that one Ghostbusters 3 script a couple years ago, the movie would have already come out this summer, been a huge hit, and everyone would have loved it, especially Bill Murray. You know, the insanity of this whole story is almost starting to loop back around to being kind of awesome. [Esquire]

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Here's a new poster for the delayed G.I. Joe sequel. I'm guessing that the poster, much like the film itself, now features Channing Tatum way more prominently than it would have if this thing had been released as originally planned. [Yahoo!]

The Croods

Fringe

[gallery 5966011] Here are some promo photos for the eighth episode, "The Human Kind", which airs this Friday. [SpoilerTV]

The twelfth and penultimate episode is reportedly called "Liberty." [SpoilerTV]

S.H.I.E.L.D.

Assuming ABC goes ahead with Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D. series, which is currently at the pilot stage, the showrunners will be husband-and-wife team and Dollhouse writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, which had already been rumored, as well as Jeffrey Bell, who was the Angel showrunner for its final two seasons. [EW]

The Walking Dead

Showrunner Glen Mazzara discusses what's next for Andrea:

"Where does she belong? She doesn't really belong at Woodbury; she doesn't really even belong at the prison. It'll be very interesting to see Andrea try to straddle both worlds."

Arrow

"[After the midseason finale] you're going to be left thinking, ‘No, they didn't!' It's that big. [On] Dexter, they had this huge cliffhanger at the end of one of the seasons where they killed off [Dexter's wife] Rita…It's going to be bigger than that. Huge."

He also discusses Diggle's evolving relationship with Oliver and what's ahead for his character:

"I think [Diggle] sees himself as offering something Oliver really can't do by himself. And I think that's why Oliver selected him; this was not an arbitrary selection. So you will see him standing up to Oliver. I think it's delivered in a way where you see that Oliver needs this... Right now, lots of what we see is Diggle facilitating Oliver's growth - and I think all the characters do to some degree. But [viewers will see] more of Diggle's backstory and you're going to see more of what his relationship with Oliver means to his own family."

Here's a teaser for the ninth episode and midseason premiere, courtesy of E! Online:

How about that there's a copycat Arrow running around shooting bad guys?! Yes, Oliver will be on the hunt for his impersonator in episode 9, and by episode's end we'll learn that it's actually someone we know. Dun-dun-dun!

The show is currently casting another DC Comics import, this time the dragon-tattooed archer and martial artist Shado. The comic book version was an adversary-turned-ally for Green Arrow, and the TV version will make her debut in episode fourteen, reportedly titled "The Odyssey." [Zap2It]

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The show is also reportedly adding a new character called Dodger for the fifteenth episode. I would assume this character will be based on the Cockney-accented, high-tech thief who has faced off against Green Arrow in the comics, though that is just speculation on my part. [SpoilerTV]

The Vampire Diaries

According to TV Guide, the first half of season four is headed for a brutal finish, as "there will be mass casualties in the midseason finale, including someone you've known since Season 1." [TV Guide]

Teen Wolf

The Final Destination actress Haley Webb has reportedly been cast as a new love interest for Tyler Hoechlin's Derek Hale. [Deadline]